When I do a Google search for the word “Enclave” excluding any results with “Gaza,” most of the first pages are links to a Buick sports utility vehicle named Enclave. There are also apartment and townhouse complexes, resorts, senior living, assisted living and nursing homes named “The Enclave.” Only on the 4th page of Google results does the first link to a geographical area appear. It is to the Serbian film Enklava.

On page 5, there’s a link to the Goodreads page for the dystopian young adult novel Enclave by Ann Aguirre.

But this doesn’t apply to Gaza. Palestinians were the modern history’s original inhabitants of Gaza, and Palestine in general, and the only Palestinians who entered Gaza in the last century are those whom the Zionists drove out of other areas of Palestine. Furthermore, the Israeli and the Egyptian states severely restrict travel out of Gaza, so people are not choosing to gather there. Furthermore, other enclaves are not blockaded and subject to chronic violence at their borders and periodic bouts of massive air, sea and land bombardment killing hundreds and destroying factories, infrastructure and homes.

In fact, the closest contemporary use of “enclave” which corresponds to the reality of Occupied Gaza is from the worlds of dystopian novels and computer gaming.

Does journalism’s use of “enclave” to describe Gaza hide the reality of Israeli occupation and violence? I think so.